Apr
19
Fireworks by Pete Kephart
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A master artist living in the hills of West Virginia near the South Branch of the Potomac. In Kephart’s “fireworks,” a sheet of paper is stapled to a rigid board. A bonfire is started out in the woods. While the fire grows, gunpowder is spread across the paper, a design is created with water (and sometimes with water color), and time passes, allowing the water to absorb into the paper. The gunpowder is then ignited, the board is inverted over the bonfire, and the drawing is realized by the fires’ singeing and burning of the dry paper surface around the wet design. The drawing is then embellished with smoldering charcoal on site or is removed to the studio, where it is completed, usually using soft pastels.
